Is Bachmann Freedom Bulb an American Job Killer

The genesis of potential Presidentress Michele Bachmann (curious about the term Presidentress, see below) is H. R. 5616 the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act.
As I chronicled in 2008,

Bachmann’s legislation is a response to the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 which President Bush signed in December.

President Bush touted in a press release The Lighting Efficiency Mandate which will improve lighting efficiency by more than 70 percent by 2020 yet the Congresswoman feels this legislation was enacted in haste and in error.

That bill was properly debated and many consider that America was actually years behind in enacting this legislation.

The incandescent bulb is an energy hog. Just 5 percent of the electricity it uses goes to light the bulb; the other 95 percent is heat. Lowering demand for electricity from coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide, is the goal. CO2, most climate scientists say, is the single largest contributor to global warming.

In 2006, about 200 million compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs were sold in the U.S. One retailer, Wal-Mart, said it wants to sell 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) by 2008.

So voluntarily, many consumers are switching to CFL bulbs and manufacturers are increasing production.

In 2007, Australia said it would become the first country in the world to ban traditional, incandescent light bulbs. The European Union, representing 490 million citizens in 27 member states will be expected to switch to energy-efficient bulbs by 2009.

The new standards will not ban the incandescent bulbs that are familiar to consumers today; they will make the bulbs 25 to 30 percent more efficient. Switching to compact florescent bulbs (CFLs) or light emitting diode (LED) bulbs will bring consumers even greater savings.

Yet, potential Presidentress Bachmann phrased the question in terms of the Freedom to Choose and it has become a standard part of her stump speech every since.

From 2008, when her legislation died with 24 co-sponsors, the latest BULB Act garnered the support of 233 Representatives … but in a procedural move, the Republican-managed House allowed the vote to require a 2/3rds majority … meaning that the bill would not be approved and thus it stays in the stump speech for 2012 election purposes.
These politicians think voters are stupid and won’t realize the games they play.

Some things that we may not know … light bulb manufacturing has been leaving America for years … and the CFL did not have anything to do with it.
In fact, General Electric was a major producer of light bulbs maintaining production and R&D facilities in the Neal Park area of Cleveland Ohio. During the first U.S. energy crisis in the mid-’70s GE assigned Ed Hammer to work on energy efficient bulbs. By 1975, Hammer had invented the CFL. Although executives at GE liked the idea, they decided not to market it at the time as CFLs would require entirely new manufacturing facilities, which would cost, at that time, $25 million.
With the CFL design proven, competitors became interested. The production of CFLs was streamlined by a Chinese immigrant to the US named Ellis Yan. In the 1990s, Mr. Yan took the jobs to China to take advantage of the supremely cheap labor. Yan’s Aurora Ohio company – Technical Consumer Products Inc (TCP) – was the first to mass-produce CFLs. Mr. Hammer, is a consultant for TCP, Inc., states “TCP makes something like 1.5 million CFLs a day.”
In 2008, TCP introduced over 140 new ENERGY STAR qualified CFL’s and 25 new ENERGY STAR qualified LED Decorative Light Strings.

Because customers have expressed a desire for goods made in America, by Thanksgiving, TCP Inc. expects to have 22 to 25 employees producing CFL bulbs at a 100,000-square-foot warehouse it owns behind its headquarters on Campus Drive in the Cleveland Ohio area.

Why Now and Why in America ?

“We’ve been preparing since then for this moment,” Mr. Yan, CEO of TCP said ever since the federal government passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

But it’s not just TCP in Aurora Ohio that production is occuring :
Osram Sylvania has retooled its current St. Marys, Pennsylvania incandescent factory to produce new energy saving incandescent bulbs that will meet the standards.

GE recently invested $60 million to create a Global Center of Excellence for linear fluorescent lamp manufacturing in Bucyrus, Ohio—an action that will double the number of jobs at that plant.

Besides CFLs there are LED products.

Next year, for instance, Eye Lighting International of North America Inc. (a subsidiary of Iwasaki Electric Ltd. of Tokyo) could start assembling its first LED products at its Mentor Ohio headquarters, where it employs about 150, said president and chief operating officer Tom Salpietra.

Green Mill Global LLC of Akron also wants to make LED fixtures in Northeast Ohio. The company, which distributes fixtures made by Fawoo Technology, has received permission from the South Korean manufacturer to build a U.S. plant.

Others include Lighting Sciences Group Corp in Florida, and Philips Lighting (the world’s biggest lighting company) to produce the next generation of efficient LED light bulbs.

But the big job producer is Cree. President Obama toured their North Carolina facility in June. Cree, which already employs more than 1,700 people in Durham County, announced that the company said it would create an additional 250 jobs by 2013 to produce recently developed LED wafers … expanding in the US instead of China or Malaysia.

While initially, I was supportative due to the energy efficiencies, now it’s about the potential of JOBS …

WHY would Congress want to influence plans that Job Creators have in motion … just so that foreign manufacturers can sell their inefficient light bulbs here ?

In fairness though, the energy efficiences deserve some attention.
Researchers with the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP) and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) recently calculated the potential savings, considering average statewide electricity prices, the typical energy savings from more efficient bulbs, and state-level data on household energy usage.

In Minnesota, the Projected Annual Electricity Savings from New Energy Efficient Light Bulb Standards are :

“Clearly, consumers, the economy and the environment will suffer if these standards are repealed,” said Jim Presswood, NRDC’s federal energy policy director. “It also will send the wrong signal to the lighting industry, which has already started making better bulbs.”
Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which conducted the analysis for NRDC, said “The average U.S. household would save about 7 percent on their annual electric costs – or roughly one-twelfth. In other words, the savings from the lighting standards would be like getting a free month without a power bill, every single year.”

JOBS plus Consumer Savings equals Smart Policy
… so why are some members of Congress being so stupid
… my guess is because potential Presidentress Bachmann taunts them with politically motivated implications that the Big Brother Bureaucracy will “tells us which light bulbs to buy” … that resonates with a segment of voters.
Voters need to elect Smarter legislators.

Note : While George Washington was known as the “President”, the “First Lady” term was not applied to Martha Washington … she was known the “Lady Presidentress” … thus if Marcus Bachmann will be known as “First Dude” then it seems only appropriate that Ms. Bachmann would be known as “Presidentress”.

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Is there any connection to Bachmann’s position and her political donations, or is this just part of her general opposition to progress and positive change of any kind, in some weird retro aspect of her demented Christian world view?

Science be damned, according to this woman, and facts are something with which she has only occasional acquaintance.

Bachmann is an embarrassment to this state and this country wherever she goes.

I had migraines when I was a teenager; in Bachmann’s case maybe it reflects a larger problem with Bachmann’s brain working properly.

Bachmann opposed the legislation that Bush signed in December 2007 and offered her Freedom of Choice (Bulb) Act once the new session in Congress started in 2008 … it was considered to be a joke at the time and only a small number of Republicans became cosponsors … so I don’t think her motivation was based on garnering potential financial contributions.

IMO, this is the Bachmann philosophy … “Big Brother” should not be able to dictate what people can do (unless God and her religious convictions tell her otherwise) … remember that as a young college student Michele Amble lead a 1977 crusade at Winona State protesting that Alcohol was prohibited in the dorms … even early on in her pre-Republican days she was opposed to “Big Brother” telling her what she could or could not do … even drinking in the dorms.

Bachmann has found the “Big Brother” appeal works and if anything, it shows the power and influence of Bachmann … she was able to get other Republicans to start singing from the same hymnal … John Kline (R-MN-02) was a cosponsor of the first BULB Act offered this session and once they rushed the latest version for a vote virtually every Republican voted for it (10 opposed it) … so the question is not so much for Bachmann but why have Erik Paulsen (R-MN-03) and Raymond Cravaack (R-MN-08) decided that Minnesotans need to import inefficient energy-consuming products ?
Americans should be glad that some manufacturing is returning to America … that would not have occured if not for the legislation that Bush signed.
But that argument is not heard as long as Bachmann and her choir focus on “the government should not tell us what light bulb to use … after all, what’s next will they tell us that we must eat spinach … Obamacare must be repealed.”
It’s not really about light bulbs … heck, they said that when the used the rules to require a 2/3 majority to pass the legislation … knowing that it would fail and thus it continues to be a campaign tool for attacking Obama (even though Bush signed the legislation.)

Wow . . .this article is proof you can’t believe anything you read on the internet. GE did not invent the CFL and Mr.Ellis Yan did not develop it. He took the idea from his Michigan customer ProLight of Holland Mi. Philips and OSRAM/Siemen were manufacturing CFL’s in Europe a decade before Mr Yan even heard the term CFL. Yan created TCP, an OEM, by taking any idea his customer gave him and copying it. The original spiral CFL’s came from eastern Europe and were never patented, resulting in a world wide free for all and race to the bottom in quality and price. I designed and marketed energy efficient lighting from 1982 to 2005. GE’s Jack Welch admitted they missed the boat on energy efficient lighting, and have never been the same since he left the company.

As for M.Bochmann, her ridiculous non-sense commentary will be missed.

Regarding “who” invented the CFL, I will let that be discussed by others, yet the point of the commentary was that America is returning to light bulb production.
Here in Minnesota, 3M has won a national Edison award for innovation with its new LED lightbulb which lasts three times longer than CFL bulbs and achieves full power within a second or two after it is turned on. 3M says the bulb is more efficient than CFL bulbs.

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